CollegeRPI.com is projecting Virginia Tech to finish 23-7 overall and 10-6 in the ACC. That, by the way, should be enough for an NCAA tournament berth

How, you ask, did we arrive at those numbers? Yanda spoke with the site's founder and got some answers; I've pasted much of what he's written below and included a poll for your take on where the Hokies will finish.

About a year ago, Yanda reported, Chit Yu and a few others started RealTimeRPI.com. Using a statistical prediction model based on a multi-variable regression formula, RealTimeRPI.com projects the score of each game, the final record of each Division I team and which teams will make the NCAA tournament.

"Who will win a game, that's the future," Yu, an analyst for RealTimeRPI.com, told Yanda this week. "We want to sell and present a rating."

A team's predicted finish can change after each game, Yanda wrote, as well as after each game any of its opponents plays. For instance, on Saturday -- prior to the start of Maryland's ACC slate -- RealTimeRPI.com predicted that the Terrapins would finish 12-17 and 3-13 in conference play. On Sunday, before Maryland tipped off against Florida State, its predicted finish changed to 14-15 and 5-11.

Yu told Yanda that a team's home-court advantage usually contributes four to eight points to the predicted tally of the home team's final score in each game. How many points the home team is afforded is based on its record at home in the "last couple of seasons," Yu said. Non-mathematical factors, such as atmosphere, crowd noise, etc., are not considered.

On the surface, Yanda wrote, it would appear that RealTimeRPI.com bases its game predictions on which team holds a higher RPI ranking, but Yu insisted that is not the case. According to the Web site, RealTimeRPI.com's game predictions are accurate 76.8 percent of the time.

With a 10-6 ACC record, not only would VT qualify for the NCAA tournament with ease, they'd probably be something like a #5 or #6 seed in their region.

I think that if they can just manage to go 8-8 in ACC play, they stand a fairly good chance of getting into the tournament at 21-9. If they can go 9-7 in the ACC and 22-8 overall, I think they're 99% likely to get in.